What does this skill do, and when should you use it?
This is the pptx skill bundled in Open Cowork's built-in Skills library, defined at .claude/skills/pptx/SKILL.md in the repository. It supports three working modes: creating new presentations via an html2pptx workflow, editing existing files by directly modifying Office Open XML, and building template-based decks by duplicating, reordering, and filling template slides. The skill ships with helper scripts (unpack/pack/validate/inventory/replace) and requires dependencies such as markitdown, pptxgenjs, LibreOffice, and Poppler. Note that the SKILL.md itself is marked proprietary (terms in LICENSE.txt), while the host repository Open Cowork is MIT-licensed.
- Extracts text from .pptx via markitdown, or unpacks the ZIP/XML to read speaker notes, comments, layouts, and theme colors/fonts
- For new decks: designs HTML slides (960×540), converts them with the html2pptx library, and adds charts/tables through the PptxGenJS API
- For edits: unpacks with ooxml/scripts, modifies ppt/slides/slide{N}.xml, validates each edit, then repacks
- For templates: generates thumbnail grids with thumbnail.py, rearranges slides with rearrange.py, and fills placeholders with inventory.py + replace.py
- Converts slides to PDF (soffice) and JPEG (pdftoppm) to visually inspect for cutoff, overlap, and alignment issues
- A professional who needs to turn a CSV or notes into a multi-slide work summary deck
- A designer or marketer with a corporate template who must fill in new content while preserving the original design
- An operations person who needs to batch-edit text, notes, or comments in an existing presentation
- A user who wants the AI to analyze an existing deck's layouts, theme colors, and fonts to emulate its style
- Users who want a purely online, point-and-click slide editor and won't install Python/Node/LibreOffice dependencies
- Formats other than .pptx (e.g., native Keynote or Google Slides editing) — the skill handles .pptx only
- Pure API-call environments: the skill relies on shell execution of local commands, so callers must supply an execution channel
How do you install this skill?
- Shell / CLI
- Local filesystem
Python 3 (markitdown, defusedxml)Node.js (pptxgenjs, playwright, react-icons)LibreOffice (soffice)Poppler (pdftoppm)
The skill is pre-installed with the Open Cowork desktop app under .claude/skills/pptx/; SKILL.md documents no standalone install commands. Install the host app to use it:
Open Cowork (macOS, Homebrew)
brew tap OpenCoworkAI/tap
brew install --cask --no-quarantine open-coworkOpen Cowork (Windows/macOS installers)
# Download the .exe (Windows) or .dmg (macOS Apple Silicon) from the GitHub Releases pageOpen Cowork (build from source)
git clone https://github.com/OpenCoworkAI/open-cowork.git
cd open-cowork
npm install
npm run rebuild
npm run devHow do you use this skill?
Once installed, send your agent any of these to trigger it:
- Read the financial_report.csv in this folder and create a PowerPoint summary with 5 slides
- Use company_template.pptx and build a new deck from my quarterly data following its layouts
- Extract all speaker notes from presentation.pptx and show them to me
- Change the title on slide 3 of report.pptx to '2024 Annual Summary' and replace every old year in the body text with 2024
The skill is triggered by its SKILL.md description whenever the user asks to create, modify, or analyze .pptx files. Three main flows:
- From scratch: read html2pptx.md and css.md completely, extract the html2pptx library (tar -xzf html2pptx.tgz -C html2pptx), author 960×540 HTML slides, then run a Node script calling the html2pptx function and pptx.writeFile();
- Editing: unpack → edit XML manually → validate with validate.py after each edit → pack with pack.py;
- Template-based: thumbnail.py for visual analysis → save a template inventory → rearrange.py with 0-based slide indices → inventory.py for text extraction → replace.py to apply replacements (with bullet/alignment/color paragraph properties).
Mandatory visual validation after generation:
soffice --headless --convert-to pdf output.pptx
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 150 output.pdf slideInspect each image for text cutoff, overlap, positioning, contrast, and alignment; fix in priority order (margins → font size → layout redesign) and regenerate until all slides pass.
What are this skill's strengths and limitations?
- Covers three complete workflows (create, edit, template) with ready-to-run unpack/validate/replace scripts
- Enforces page-by-page visual validation via image conversion, catching common defects like cutoff and overlap
- Template workflow preserves original formatting — fonts, alignment, bullets — via the inventory/replace scripts
- Text extraction and theme typography/color analysis work out of the box, making style emulation straightforward
- Heavy dependencies: Python (markitdown, defusedxml), global npm packages (pptxgenjs, playwright, react-icons), LibreOffice, and Poppler
- SKILL.md is marked "Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms" — different from the repo's MIT license; verify terms before commercial use
- Visual validation relies on LibreOffice rendering, which may differ from real PowerPoint; the source offers no test evidence of fidelity
- The source does not confirm full Linux operation (Poppler/LibreOffice have Linux install commands, but the host app has no Linux installer yet)
How does this skill compare with similar options?
Side by side with related skills; every score comes from the same FSRS standard.
| Skill | FS score | Stars | Last updated | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PPTX Presentation Skill (Open Cowork) this page | 69 · Recommended | ★ 2.2k | 12d ago | MIT |
| PPTX Presentation Skill | 47 · Use with care | ★ 3.1k | 8mo ago | MIT |
| deepPPT | 67 · Recommended | ★ 28 | 2mo ago | MIT |
| DeepTutor pptx Skill | 58 · Recommended | ★ 41k | 17d ago | Apache-2.0 |
| PPTX Presentation Skill ✓ Anthropic · Official | 54 · Use with care | ★ 181k | 16d ago | — |
The host README compares Open Cowork with Claude Cowork and OpenClaw across MCP & Skills, remote control, and GUI operation (Open Cowork supports all three); regarding the pptx skill itself, it is one of Open Cowork's built-in skills (pptx/docx/pdf/xlsx/skill-creator), and the source provides no direct comparison with other PPT-generation tools.
How did FollowSkills review this skill?
Also a bundled copy of Anthropic's official pptx skill — content is trustworthy but the version may lag the official source.
Open a dimension to read why it scored that way
Evidence confidence：Low — Mostly static review, author material or a limited demo; useful for discovery, not high-risk decisions.
This review was completed under FSRS 1.0. Dimension scores are not converted; it is queued for re-review under FSRS 2.0.
See the full review method →